Hanging hotel for rock climbers

Dr Margot Krasojevic’s hanging hotel concept was designed with rock climbers in mind and once you have climbed your way up to the futuristic hotel set in the side of a mountain, you can look forward to a customisable resting space. The hotel was designed for the Holden Manz Wine Estate Cape Town in Massif de L’Esterel in the South of France.

[Image Source: Dr. Margot Krasojevic]

The hotel campsite is embedded into the granite rock with borehole foundations, which have been injected into the rock. Platforms on the exterior provide extra climbing surfaces, along with making excellent resting places when climbers are making their way to the entrance of the hotel.

The hanging hotel is made up of a series of platforms and pods, with the majority of the primary structure and interior pods being made of steel horizontal piles, along with columns and sections of steel frame. The secondary structure is comprised of a wooden walkway supporting the structure, which creates smooth geometry across the surface.

The partitions for the pods are made up of laminated plywood panelling and polymer shell reinforced with carbon fibre. The entire structure of the hanging hotel has then been finished off with paint over elastic plaster. The hanging hotel seems to cling on to the side of the rock like something out of an alien movie.

[Image Source: Dr. Margot Krasojevic]

One of the most important parts of the material used in the construction of the hotel is a holographic compound glass and prism louver system that changes the look along with the feel of the inside of the hotel. It does this by changing the light level inside, reducing the amount of glare and produces a shimmer of coloured lighting effects on the walls inside.

Along with this the glass helps to protect climbers from the harmful UVB rays of the sun. It also helps to give a surrealist feeling, which helps climbers who are tired from their climb to disassociate themselves from reality and so aids rest and recovery.

“It can also ‘tune climbers in’ to the reality of the environment by creating a hyperawareness about the nuances of light that our vision may not be accustomed to seeing,” explains the designer.

[Image Source: Dr. Margot Krasojevic]

The filters in the hanging hotel can be removed and this allows the pods to be choreographed so that they have the desired effect. The louvers on which the filters are fixed onto wrap around the pods allowing for the shading system to dim the sunlight. The filters can be tweaked to bring about illusions and mirages, which are out of the true environment.

They change colours along with the relationship of the views. The pods have been designed to be half construction along with half excavation into the rock and as such they can be seen as being an extension of the rock wall. The construction carefully placed finger and fist jams into the concrete surface structure along with over the surfaces, as to create a climbing surface to access the platforms.